the silence has been long, I know, and I have definitely missed blogging! here is a bit of what has been going on in our lives in the last month as form of an update and also explanation for my silence: -we ended January and began Feburary with two consecutive SUPER SHIFTS (our long week + weekend shift that we do once a month). we normally don't schedule these back to back and will try our best to avoid doing it again, but it was necessary this time and kept me away from my computer on the weekends and found me sleeping whenever I could catch a free moment. -we also ended January by counting 16 youth who we had worked with in our home during that month. as several of our long-term girls had transitioned out for various reasons over the last few months, we had several short-term girls come in and it was a rotating door for awhile until we reached this record high. it gave us the opportunity to know and work with a wide variety of girls and be educated and stretched in so m